Scientists have named S301 the fastest-moving star on a confirmed orbit in the Milky Way. It reaches a top speed of about 25,000 km/s, nearly 8% of the speed of light, while following a highly elliptical 8.7-year orbit around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s centre. At closest approach it comes within about 12 astronomical units (AU) of the black hole. The finding was made using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) in Chile.